Friday, May 16, 2008

Not Dead Yet

Just as a little inbetween update:

I'm currently working on a (lengthy) presentation of the October 2007 conference on "Basis See" hosted by Griephan Global Security and the Deutsche Marine Institut think tank.Documentation for that conference, for a sneak preview, can be found here (in German only).

The Bundeswehrplan 2009 should be leaked sometime in the next three weeks. I'll likely put forward some stuff regarding that too, if there's anything "interesting" in there.The official budget was hammered out last month already. In 2009, the Bundeswehr will have 30.1 billion Euro available; as a positive thing, funding for the new aircraft of the Flugbereitschaft (couple A319 and A340, as well as Bombardier 5000, total about 1.4 billion euro) will not be drawn from the Bundeswehr budget.

50-year aniversary of joint German-British navy training in Plymouth sometime around now. F219 Sachsen is part of the Weekly War there this week.

The first German K130 corvette Braunschweig was commissioned last month. Currently participating in the Mare Aperto maneuvers off Sicily with her squadron tender Donau.

Eight German ships (three minehunters, two frigates, one FAC, two auxiliaries) just returned from taking part in NATO maneuver JOINT WARRIOR off Scotland training asymmetric and mine warfare scenarios. Part of the scenario is protecting an oil platform against attacking insurgents in small aircraft, dinghis, speedboats and even jetskis.Other scenarios included attack from land, some ASW, and more specific air threats.

NH90 NFH (MH-90) is getting some criticism for delays lately. MoD is supposedly looking for alternatives.Somewhat interesting in that regard, JOINT WARRIOR apparently saw a British Merlin operating from a German frigate (more than just crossdecking, the relevant article says "air operations").

Other than that, not really much news regarding the German Navy out there.